Despite Trump attacks, both parties vow orderly election

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses drew swift blowback Thursday from both parties in Congress, and lawmakers turned to unprecedented steps to ensure he can’t ignore the vote of the people. Amid the uproar, Trump said anew he’s not sure the election will be “honest.”

Congressional leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, rejected Trump’s assertion that he’ll “see what happens” before agreeing to any election outcome.

Many other lawmakers — including from Trump’s own Republican Party — vowed to make sure voters’ wishes are followed ahead of Inauguration Day in January. And some Democrats were taking action, including formally asking Trump’s defense secretary, homeland security adviser and attorney general to declare they’ll support the Nov. 3 results, whoever wins. Continue reading.

Trump can’t even keep his coup secret

AlterNet logo

Donald Trump is escalating. Wednesday afternoon, under questioning by Brian Karem of Playboy, Trump offered what the mainstream news outlets are calling a “failure to commit” to a “peaceful transfer of power.” One might also call it “threatening a coup”.

The first time Karem asked Trump whether he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election, Trump pulled his usual move, pretending that the fate of our democracy is like a reality-show cliffhanger: “Well, we’re going to have to see what happens.”

But Karem was dogged and asked him again: “Do you commit to making sure that there’s a peaceful transferral of power?” Continue reading.

Republicans try to ‘both sides’ Trump’s comments on peaceful transfer of power

Washington Post logo

The president of the United States on Wednesday evening declined to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the 2020 election — ratcheting up previous rhetoric baselessly casting doubt on the legitimacy of what polls suggest is a likely defeat.

In response, congressional Republicans have assured there will be a transfer of power, but they have mostly refused to rebuke Trump personally. And increasingly, they’ve suggested this is a “both sides” issue.

In a series of tweets Thursday morning, Republicans from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) to Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) to the third-ranking House Republican, Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), promised a peaceful transfer of power and emphasized its importance in our constitutional republic. But in each of their statements, Trump was basically Voldemort. There was no suggestion that they were responding directly to Trump or that he actually said something wrong. Continue reading.

Gov. Walz and Lt. Gov. Flanagan Weekly Update: September 25, 2020

Friday, September 25, 2020

This week…

Governor Tim Walz and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan continued their Statewide Safe Learning Tour, visiting schools in Moorhead and St. Cloud. The Governor and Lieutenant Governor are kicking off the start of the 2020-21 school year by visiting students and educators both in-person and virtually across the state. 

Continue reading “Gov. Walz and Lt. Gov. Flanagan Weekly Update: September 25, 2020”

Democrats say the GOP’s attempt to smear Biden accidentally exposed a Trump official’s ‘corrupt scheme’

AlterNet logo

The Republican report aimed at raising questions about the dealings of Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in Ukraine appears to have accidentally implicated former Energy Secretary Rick Perry in an energy scheme in the foreign nation, according to the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.

Republicans led by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., released their much-hyped report on Hunter Biden’s role at the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma on Wednesday. However, it found no evidence of actual wrongdoing and relied largely on debunked claims, old statements and narratives pushed as part of a Russian disinformation campaign.


But the report did find new evidence related to Perry’s actions in Ukraine while he served in President Donald Trump’s Cabinet. Continue reading.

The code: How genetic science helped expose a secret coronavirus outbreak

Washington Post logo

POSTVILLE, Iowa — It wasn’t until their colleagues began to disappear that workers at Agri Star Meat and Poultry realized there was a killer in their midst.

First came the rumors that rabbis at the kosher plant had been quarantined. Then a man who worked in the poultry department fell ill. They heard whispers about friends of friends who had been stricken with scorching fevers and unbearable chills — characteristic symptoms of the novel coronavirus.

Where was the contagion coming from? Continue reading.

Vote boldly, vote carefully, to ensure it counts

I’ve provided some tips to make sure that negligence, ignorance and manipulation don’t prevent your voice from being heard. 

Minnesotans have started to vote. They expect their votes will be counted, and mostly, they will be. But some votes will not be counted.

Negligence, ignorance and manipulation can cause a ballot to be invalid, or a potential voter not to vote. Some voters will self-disenfranchise. Informed and intelligent voting will minimize problems and ensure that ballots are properly cast and valid.

As a Supreme Court justice, I scrutinized ballots in several elections, including the 2008 U.S. Senate race and the 2010 race, each of which ended with a statewide recount. I reviewed thousands of ballots and saw firsthand why some were invalid. Continue reading.

Parsing Trump’s ‘there won’t be a transfer’ comments

Washington Post logo

As the 2016 election approached, then-candidate Donald Trump’s rhetoric escalated. He would lose only if there was fraud committed against him, he said at multiple points, and he regularly derided the process as “rigged.” During the third presidential debate, Trump was asked whether he would recognize the results of the election.

“I will look at it at the time,” Trump replied. “I’m not looking at anything now. I’ll look at it at the time. What I’ve seen, what I’ve seen, is so bad.” He went on to disparage the media and elevate false claims about the risk posed by outdated voter rolls.

When he won the election anyway, this idea that he had somehow been cheated persisted. After all, he had lost the popular vote, so he has repeatedly as president asserted that somehow millions of illegal votes were cast without being detected, enough to suggest that it was he, not Hillary Clinton, who was actually the choice of the overall electorate four years ago. Continue reading.

Internal USPS documents link changes behind mail slowdowns to top executives

Washington Post logo

Newly obtained records appear in conflict with months of Postal Service assertions that blamed lower-level managers for strategies tied to delivery delays

A senior executive at the U.S. Postal Service delivered a PowerPoint presentation in July that pressed officials across the organization to make the operational changes that led to mail backups across the country, seemingly counter to months of official statements about the origin of the plans, according to internal documents obtained by The Washington Post.

David E. Williams, the agency’s chief of logistics and processing operations, listed the elimination of late and extra mail trips by postal workers as a primary agency goal during the July 10 teleconference. He also told the group that he wanted daily counts on such trips, which had become common practice to ensure the timely delivery of mail. Several top-tier executives — including Robert Cintron, vice president of logistics; Angela Curtis, vice president of retail and post office operations; and vice presidents from the agency’s seven geographic areas — sat in.

The presentation stands in contrast with agency accounts that lower-tier leaders outside USPS headquarters were mainly responsible for the controversial protocols, which tightened dispatch schedules on transport trucks and forced postal workers to leave mail behind. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told a House panel last month that he pressed his team to meet dispatch and mail-handling schedules but did not issue a blanket ban on such trips. Continue reading.

If the Supreme Court Ends Obamacare, Here’s What It Would Mean

New York Times logo

The Affordable Care Act touches the lives of most Americans, and its abolition could have a significant effect on many millions more people than those who get their health coverage through it.

What would happen if the Supreme Court struck down the Affordable Care Act?

The fate of the sprawling, decade-old health law known as Obamacare was already in question, with the high court expected to hear arguments a week after the presidential election in the latest case seeking to overturn it. But now, the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg increases the possibility that the court could abolish it, even as millions of people are losing job-based health coverage during the coronavirus pandemic.

A federal judge in Texas invalidated the entire law in 2018. The Trump administration, which had initially supported eliminating only some parts of the law, then changed its position and agreed with the judge’s ruling. Earlier this year the Supreme Court agreed to take the case. Continue reading.